The Road Not Taken
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
It is said that Robert Frost wrote this poem as a joke for a fellow poet, Edward Thomas.
Poking fun at Thomas’ indecisiveness, and tendency to wish he had chosen otherwise.
Frost was surprised at how seriously the poem was received.
Hits at a profound truth of life.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Choice is inevitable. No standing still, no going back – only going on.
We’ve learned with our kids to limit options…
If there are 100 flavors of ice cream, let them choose between 2…
Sometimes, the options we’re given are no good…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
What do we do when we come to a fork in our path, and neither road holds promise?
What do we do, as Christians, when we come to a fork and can’t find Jesus on either road?
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
We’re going to read from Matthew 22:15-22,
and we’ll find Jesus in that same situation…
There are two paths ahead – but neither lead to victory…
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”
But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Pharisees get a bad rap…
We hear “Pharisee,” and automatically think “enemy of Jesus.”
Or “hypocrite.”
Or just “evil people.”
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Not at all…
Pharisees are a dedicated, devout people of God.
Their desires were good! They wanted the Messiah to come and rescue God’s people!
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Believed:
Radical obedience to Torah would usher in return of the Messiah.
Messiah would serve their political and religious interests.
They were focused on the restoration of the nation of Israel.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Pharisees – who obeyed God carefully and desired the coming Messiah,
Found themselves opposed to Jesus.
Jesus had a following, influence, disregard for some laws, and different priorities (unpack).
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
They couldn’t see that Jesus was the Messiah.
Not how they pictured a Messiah. Outside their framework.
Opposed him – because he undermined their cause.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Irony – in their desire for the Messiah, they ended up opposing the Messiah.
Last week, “making God in our image” & “golden calves.”
Pharisees wanted a Messiah who would serve their interests.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
I don’t think they were aware of their selfishness.
We never think of our pursuit of power as selfish…
But it didn’t lead them to Jesus.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
At best, Jesus was a nuisance to them. Distraction from their mission.
At worst, an enemy of their cause. Opposed their mission.
Really – he was the fulfillment of their deepest longings – couldn’t see it.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
So defensive of the power they had and their broken view of the world
That they couldn’t see the Messiah right in front of them…
Couldn’t know freedom…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Let us confess! Sometimes bound and blinded by own ideas, ambitions, opinions…
All the while, missing Jesus. He’s right in front of us…
And when we’re chained to our own ideas, ambitions, opinions,
We miss the opportunity to be liberated by his presence, power and love.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
The good news of Jesus is so good – so liberating, so freeing!
But sometimes rather than experiencing that freedom, we wrap ourselves in chains…
The good news is better than that! It breaks those chains!
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
But the Pharisees were chained to their ideas…
Their expectations, their opinions, their ambitions, priorities…
Jesus was right in front of them, but they couldn’t embrace the freedom he offers.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
So the Pharisees devised a trap… Simple question…
“Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.”
Flattery, playing innocent…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
“You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are.”
Crediting him with not being swayed by power, convincing the crowd he has no regard for them, and leading him to the answer they want to hear (“Caesar has no pull over you” - unpack)…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
They’ve flattered him, tried to manipulate, tried to undermine.
Now, to spring the trap:
“Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Now let’s unpack that question – more dangerous than it might seem.
On one side, upset population of Jews. Taxed in their own land by a gov’t that oppresses them.
They want to hear, “no! Don’t pay unjust taxes to an unjust ruler so you can be persecuted!”
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
On the other side are the Romans…
If Jesus says, “no! Don’t pay taxes!” he suddenly makes very powerful enemies…
In fact, Pharisees seem to be leading him this way… “we know you aren’t swayed by others” – like Caesar…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Jesus has been led by the Pharisees to a fork in the road…
Down one path, he loses his influence among Jews by aligning himself with Caesar.
Down the other path, his life comes to a swift end when he is labeled an instigator by the Romans.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost’s poem describes just such a fork in the road…
He gazes down the path, trying to discern the best way forward…
What is the best way forward for Jesus?
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Where do his loyalties lie?
With the Jews? Or with Rome?
Is he bound to public opinion of him? Or to Roman authority?
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost describes choosing the path less taken…
Still rough, due to fewer travelers…
And that, he says, has made all the difference…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
But Jesus is not offered a path less taken…
He is offered two well-worn paths.
Arguments hashed out over a long struggle for power.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
A path of Us vs. Them…
Jews vs. Romans
Insiders vs. Outsiders
Our definition of Good vs. Our definition of Evil….
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
But Jesus does not choose either path…
Instead, he forges his own…
Rather than going left or right, he presses forward toward God.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Jesus instructs them, “Show me a coin used for paying the tax.”
When they bring him a coin, he points to the image engraved on it…
An image of Caesar. His name inscribed on the coin.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
The name and image on the coin were there to announce the authority which gave it value…
The denarius had value under the authority of Caesar…
Otherwise… it was a meaningless piece of silver.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
The value of that coin was tied to the value one placed on Caesar…
So… give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
It has his face on it anyway, doesn’t it?
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
“But,” Jesus says – turning to a people who knew themselves as God’s Chosen People…
“Give to God what is God’s.”
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
The Pharisees were no friends to the Romans…
But peace needed to be maintained…
And even if it was only temporary, the Pharisees were willing to compromise…
To play nice, to appease the Romans, until power was restored to Israel…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Imagine how these words might have hit them…
“Look, Caesar’s image is on the coin. Let him have them!
But the image of God is in you – don’t give yourselves away to Caesar. Give yourself to God.”
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Jesus stood at a fork in the road…
Jewish frustration about unjust taxes on the left,
The ever-present threat of Roman authority on the right…
Two well-worn roads…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
And Jesus traveled a road otherwise not taken…
A road through wilderness…
A path through the trees and the brush…
But a path that pointed to God.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
I need to ask you a favor this morning…
I need to ask you to put in some work this morning…
The more practical I make these words, the less room I leave for the Holy Spirit to speak to you individually…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
So I want to ask you to let the Spirit do the work of application in your life…
I could make this about your job. I could make this about your family.
I could make this about all kinds of situations… but I’m only guessing…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
I don’t know what crossroads you may be at…
But I know that we have been taught to think it binary terms…
1’s and 0’s. Yeses and no’s, ups and downs, lefts and rights, True or False…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
The world gives us well-worn paths. Path A and Path B.
And it says to us, “These are the roads you may travel.”
But the path of Jesus is rarely found in those binary options.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
It is a road not presented, and a road not taken.
And taking that road means abandoning the other roads,
And traversing a new path.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
I want to talk about that road not taken…
That third way that Jesus traveled,
And that followers of Jesus are called to travel…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Because that third way can be frightening.
After all, it is off of the well-worn paths…
It isn’t left or right, and it has no interest in being center…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
It is the God-alternative to all the paths the world would offer…
It is untested. It is untried.
But it is the path followers of Jesus are called to take…
Because it is the road that leads to victory.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Where in your life is Jesus calling you to go off-road?
To brave the wilderness on a path the world doesn’t know?
Where is Jesus calling you to step out in faith?
To step off the world’s path and into the woods?
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
I know the untested path is frightening.
It is uncertain. It is untested.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Moved a lot as a kid – my mom would always say, “adventure.” Frame it as good…
What if we saw every untested path as the next step in a grand adventure…
And our goal wasn’t the easiest path, but instead we took joy in the adventure as we traveled down whatever path Jesus leads us on?
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
What adventures would we live to tell?
What stories of God’s victory would we celebrate,
If we walked along a road untraveled?
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
The journey will certainly be more demanding!
It will require more of us!
But it’s the only path to victory…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
The world’s well-worn paths have never led to victory…
Victory is only found in Jesus.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
And by the way – the victory is already won.
It is won, independent of the chaos of the world around us.
It was won on the cross. It was won in the resurrection…
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Sometimes Christians get it in their minds that we have to fight a battle against the world…
We don’t have to do that. Jesus has already conquered death’s power.
We are called to trust in his victory, and follow his paths.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
We’re not called to fight God’s fights…
We’re called to obedience!
To perseverance! To faithfulness!
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
We’re called to step into the unknown,
Trusting in the Holy Spirit as our guide,
And taking in every moment of the adventure that he leads us on!
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
If I could re-write Robert Frost’s poem, it would say:
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took a third road, untraveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Every day is filled with choices…
Chocolate or vanilla ice cream? Choose watermelon… Coconut crème. Raspberry fudge.
Cream or sugar in your coffee? Try a little cinnamon instead. If you really want to go wild, you’ll be amazed at how good it is with a pinch of salt.
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
And when you’re presented with Path A and Path B…
Be willing instead to follow Jesus down an unpaved road.
Because it’s down that road that you’ll find victory.